When I transitioned from male to female, I lost four jobs, my pension, and the vast majority of my friends.  On my bad days I wondered if my demise was inevitable.  I was lost. But it is okay, because that is also when I realized lost is a place too, and there are times when you have no choice but to spend time there.

It was a time of great fear and questioning, what John of the Cross called, “The dark night of the soul.”  As I have quoted many times, I believe it is what Dante was talking about at the beginning of the Divine Comedy when he said, “In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost.”

Did you ever wake up in the middle of the night in a blackened room and try to stumble your way to the bathroom, only to stub your toe on the corner of the bed?  You know, if you had waited a minute or so after you opened your eyes, they would have adjusted to the darkness.  You can still see in the dark.

I live in a low light community in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  After 35 years in New York, when I never knew the phases of the moon, in Colorado I always know if the moon is full or nearly so.  Since I follow it all month, I also know if it is waxing or waning.  It is waning now, but still formidable.  It was full when I came home from Los Angeles last Thursday.  A harvest moon illuminates like twilight.  But even when there is no moon, if you are willing to sit in the dark for a while, the stars and ambient light in the atmosphere are enough to light your way.

I am not saying it is fun to find your way by the light of the night.  But sometimes it is necessary.  Fortunately, you eventually make your way to dawn.  Daylight is good.  Life is easier in the daytime.  Happiness tends to come during daylight hours.

Happiness comes pretty much when you expect it.  Grandchildren laugh, you’re happy.  The first day of vacation, you’re happy.  You get a promotion, you’re happy.  Happiness is tied to external circumstances.  As a privileged white man, happiness came often.  Privilege brings more than a fair measure of external happiness.  Privilege does not necessarily bring joy.

Joy comes when you find your way in the dark.  Joy comes when you wait long enough in the place called lost until your eyes have adjusted, and you have enough light to see.  Joy comes in that moment when you finally see a way forward, or at least the first step, and you take it.

There is a particular kind of joy that comes when the step you see in the dark is one that empowers others to embark on their own journey into the dark night, or into the light of dawn, depending on the day.  The joy is in the knowing that their journey is sacred and holy and for the greater good, just like yours.

Odysseus wasn’t done journeying when he returned to Ithaca and was reunited with Penelope. He was a lover of experience and accepted another final journey, not back out to sea, but inland.  He was to travel until he got to a place in which people did not know an oar when they saw one.  There he was to plant the oar that he carried with him, as an offering of propitiation to the god Poseidon.  Only then did he get to return home and live into “sleek old age.”

Like Odysseus, we are all on a journey, maybe our first, maybe our last, but all into the unknown, undertaken when it’d be much easier to stay on the couch with our feet propped on a hassock, binge watching somebody else’s journey.  But this living is serious business, and we are pilgrims, always drawn forward through both the promising dawn and the dark of night. And for all the uncertainty of each journey, we can know these two things.  We will not be without love, and if we keep our hearts turned steadfastly to the right, there will be joy.

I took an August break from my blog.  It wasn’t planned.  It just kinda happened.  I’m good with it.

Part of the reason is that I have had a lot of wonderful things happening.  The film production company with which I am working has contracted with the screenwriters for the movie about my life, and I’ve spent some time talking with them. Last week, we talked about 2013 and 2014.  That wasn’t easy.  The human mind has a marvelous way of tempering one’s memories of difficult times. Pulling those painful memories from their place in deep storage was difficult.  I am meeting with the writers and the memories again when I am in LA this week.

The main reason I will be in Los Angeles is to appear, along with Jonathan, on the Red Table Talk television show.  We’ll be interviewed by Jada Pinkett Smith and her family.  The show came to Colorado last week to film my daughters and granddaughters.  The conversation will be about how my transition affected our family. I do not expect it to be an easy interview.  We tape on Wednesday.  I have no idea when it airs.

Friday evening I returned from a speaking engagement with the Levi Strauss & Company at their headquarters in San Francisco.  I spoke for over 200 employees about gender inequity.  It was their second annual Viola Women’s Conference.  The people at Levi’s were wonderfully responsive.  I am always amazed that some of the best work on issues of gender and racial equity is happening at the corporate level, not with religious institutions, as one might hope. Unfortunately, a lot of conservative religious institutions bring up the rear on issues of social justice.

Saturday I presented a keynote at an LGBTQ event in Denver.  Sunday I spent the day with other presenters who will be speaking together this fall.  I’ll let you know about that as soon as I am able.

A couple of weeks ago I was in New York City for a board meeting and had a chance to visit with Jonathan.  I said, “I’m not sure how I feel about doing more and more public speaking.  Every time I get on a plane, it is because I am transgender.  When I am at Left Hand, I’m just me, Paula, talking with our people about our common spiritual journey.”  Jonathan understood.  He said, “Every time I get on a plane it is because you are transgender, so I get it. But whether you like it or not, there is another call on your life in addition to your church and your counseling practice.”  I know he is right, but I’m having a hard time making peace with it.

As I listened to my daughters talk about their experience being interviewed for Red Table Talk, I was reminded once again of just how much my transition has affected all of their lives. I exploded the family narrative, and still, years later, there is so much for all of us to work through.

We all understand that it is hard enough for a family to struggle through the transition of a parent without the problem being exacerbated by a religious community that rejects the person who transitioned and treats the rest as if they no longer exist. Cathy and my daughters have rarely heard from anyone from our old denomination, a place in which both girls served as children’s pastors.  The longer I am away from the evangelical bubble, the more I realize just how uncompassionate it is toward those who dare to challenge its points of fear.

In the first couple of years after my transition, I worked a good bit with progressive post-evangelical churches creating a new movement of congregations that share the governance and worship style of evangelicalism, without the fundamentalist doctrine.  The With Collective and Launchpad are two of the organizations with which I have had the pleasure of serving.  With brings progressive churches together and Launchpad starts new churches.  I serve as an advisor to With and serve on the board of Launchpad. The more I am working in the secular arena, the less time I have to devote to these two important ministries. Between my public speaking and preaching at Left Hand Church, I am a busy person.

On August 22 I flew from LaGuardia to Denver and saw an old friend from USAir at the Admiral’s Club at LGA.  She still works for the company and recently relocated to New York.  I reminded her that five years ago that very day, she had been the last human being with whom I had spoken while still presenting as a male. It hardly seems possible that it has been only five years since I began living full time as Paula.  For the first couple of years, I was not sure I would survive.  Now, I thrive.

It is an honor to share this journey with you.  Your words of encouragement mean more than you could possibly know.  I promise, now that fall has arrived, my posts will once again be regular.  There is much I want to share as I count both the costs and the blessings of the examined life, lived authentically.